My hormone-free experience and why I took the emergency contraception

I took a pill in Ibiza…Well, not quite but before using a fertility computer, I got pregnant and had to take the emergency contraception.

The subject of emergency hormonal contraception and abortion polarizes public opinion and I am not here to state an opinion. I simply believe that woman should always have a choice and not find themselves in a one-way alley. I respect all opinions and in this post, I share my story, stories of friends and information that followers and strangers have shared with me over Instagram. I do not accept any non-sense negative comments on this post but I am happy to discuss different opinions!

Some years ago, I turned away from „only“ being a food blogger with pretty dishes and I wrote texts and shared pictures that were much more personal. Then and still now it is the best thing I could have done. And since I posted my most read article Girl with the Crunnch and changed, I lost many followers and readers but the important ones stayed. Maybe you are reading this now and you already read my blog for years and know my stories, maybe not. Let me give you a short wrap up to introduce this (maybe most personal) blog post of today.

2 years ago, I started writing about birth control and going off the pill, menstruation, and waste of tampons and pads.  Today I am at 40’000 view for the post about natural and hormone-free birth control and how you can safely have sex without hormones or condoms with the help of an intelligent computer  I was shocked at the amount of girls and woman who know so little about it and especially about how their bodies work. For those of you who remember: I asked on Instagram about experiences with the morning after pill and I got stunning 400! personal messages. So whenever you think that you are alone in this because obviously a lot of people are not talking about it, believe me, you are not! In this post I will share my personal experience and also what I learned from the messages of you guys.

First a little theory

Within the menstrual cycle of us women, we experience a rise in temperature and also hormones. The first time I saw this „visually“ was when I started tracking and measuring my temperature with my fertility calculator. I added a personal picture of my cycle so you know what I mean:

When you have your menstruation, the temperature goes back to „normal“. Isn’t nature impressive?

What happens if I take the morning after pill?

The morning after pill is messing around with this rise in hormones meaning it suppresses the ovulation and shifts it backward. This prevents the clash of sperm and ovum, which would lead to a pregnancy. I am not going into details here as I know you all know how to „google“.

Are there different kinds of emergency contraception?

I will not go into details here as well since I am not a doctor and I only have my knowledge from talking to people and simply researching on the internet. There are two common compounds on the market, called EllaOne (that’s what I had) and PiDaNa.

The main differences between Ella One and PiDaNa are:

-EllaOne is more expensive

-EllaOne can be taken 5 days after the „accident“ has happened and not only the morning after-The rate of pregnancies of women who took  EllaOne is lower than the one who took PiDaNa

Findings from my Instagram community: From all the woman, who have written me from all over the world, it seemed that EllaOne is really common in Europe and especially the US seems to have a lot of other different compounds.

Is it dangerous to take the morning after pill and what will happen to my cycle?

Putting anything like pills with hormones or whatever in your body, in never „good“. The emergency contraception contains a lot of hormones but never that amount when you take a pill on a daily basis.The hormones will be out of your body within a week, whereas when you take the pill for 3 years or more it can take up to 1 year until your body has adjusted to a hormone-free life.

The emergency control is not a thing to take on a regular basis, that is why it is called emergency. Please inform yourself about how you can prevent yourself from becoming pregnant. Everybody reacts differently to the pill and therefore also everybody will react differently to the after-pill.

When I knew I had to take this step and go the pharmacy, a bunch of scary scenarios were running through my head and I was ashamed of myself. What I experienced then, in the pharmacy was a wave of friendliness and understanding. When you want the morning-after-pill, you are obliged to have a talk with the pharmacist (at least in Switzerland) and they ask you certain questions such as:

• When was your last menstruation
• When did the unprotected sex or the „accident“ with the condom happen?
• Have you taken the morning after pill before?
• How do you use contraception?

After having the talk you will be handed a glass of water and a very, very small pill. You swallow in front of the pharmacist and then you can leave.

I went home and I prepared myself for the worst. With socks on my feet, in my bed, a hot chocolate and a peanut butter-jelly toast, I was ready to go through the pain. I am really honest with you here when I tell you that I felt nothing. Also, my menstruation came 10 days later „as normal“.

Findings from my Instagram community: This is what a lot of my followers (especially from Europe) experienced. They took the pill and they might be experiencing some minor cramps but besides that, they felt nothing. On the other hand, I got really shocking responses from my American followers, who were telling me about the worst day in their life and how they still felt bad after one week. I was wondering if this has to do with the „ingredients“ in some pills that are sold in America.

Last words

I believe that my readers know that I am a big fan of hormone-free contraception, simply because I don’t like the miscommunication of the pill and how it gets promoted to young girls without mentioning any alternatives. With this pos, I want to show that natural contraception is just as safe as swallowing a pill or putting a spiral in your vagina. On the other hand, I am not here to force people to go off the pill, as everyone has their own body, reactions, and preferences. I just want to encourage you to be sceptical and do your own research. Your body deserves it!